The invention pertains to weather reports and, particularly, to improved systems and methods for conveying them.
Weather reports are an integral part of modern life. People rely on them in deciding how to dress, recreate, travel, and conduct other daily activities. Among the many complaints about weather reports is that they are too easily forgotten. This is true of radio weather reports and, to a lesser extent, newspaper reports because they are too textual and largely devoid of graphics. Television weather reports often rely too heavily on complex graphics, even to the point of being dominated by them. This also makes for a forgettable experience.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide improved methods and systems for conveying weather forecasts. A more particular object is to provide such methods and systems as convey forecasts that are easily remembered.
Another object of the invention is to provide such methods and systems as convey forecasts that are readily understood by the viewing audience.
A further object of the invention is to provide such methods and systems as can be utilized over or in connection with television, the Internet and other electronic media.
The foregoing objects are among those attained by the invention, which provides novel systems and methods for conveying weather reports.
According to one aspect, the invention provides a system for conveying a weather report that includes a television transmitter, cable head-end or other broadcast device and a television receiver or other display device. A sequence of images broadcast by the transmitter and displayed by the receiver depict sun, sky, clouds, rain and other weather conditions superimposed on a landmark associated with a city, county or region which the report covers.
By way of example, the transmitter can broadcast, and the receiver can display, a sequence of images depicting the weather for Boston over a twelve-hour period. The sequence shows sun and clouds superimposed on an image of Fenway Park, Boston""s professional baseball stadium. The images are constructed or captured from photographs (or are otherwise photo-realistic) and are presented from a viewing perspective similar to that which viewers themselves might experience or recall. In essence, they lend familiarity to an event, i.e., the weather, that has yet to occur.
To provide a temporal perspective of the report, a clock face, time line and/or rising/setting sun are superimposed on each of the images, indicating the hours at which the depicted weather conditions will occur
In yet another aspect of the invention, a system as described above depicts forecasted weather conditions by superimposing on the aforementioned sequences temperature, atmospheric or other weather readings and/or icons of weather instruments such as thermometers or barometers.
In other aspects, the invention provides methods for conveying weather reports in accord with the operation of the system described above.
In still other aspects, the invention provides a weather reporting system as described above that operates in a computer or network environment. Such a system includes a web server, electronic mail server, electronic bulletin board, or other digital data processing device that transmits or maintains for downloading weather images of the type described above (or data for constructing such images) for display on a user""s computer. Such a system, according to related aspects of the invention, permits personalization or customization of the reports, for example, by display of user-selected landmarks or scenery.
These and other aspects of the invention are evident in the drawings and in the description that follows.